Yoga Shows the Way ...

Super exciting announcement about where I'll be going next ... stay tuned!

(can you guess by the picture??)

My Secret Ingredient for Raw Carrot Cake

I've made raw carrot cake in the past.  It was good, but it didn't exactly knock my raw socks off (or anyone else's socks).  So I decided to experiment and create my own.  When I started out on my raw food journey I didn't have much experience and I wasn't confident enough to create my own recipes.  I relied heavily on recipes I found in uncook books and websites like goneraw.com. 

Oh how times have changed.  This time I couldn't wait to get out my food processor and play!

I've made a few raw carrot cakes these past few weeks and I've been carefully refining my recipe.  In an effort to use up some produce that I had on my counter, this secret ingredient was born.  Here's what I did:

Secret Ingredient Raw Carrot Cake

Grind 3/4 cup of raw sunflower seeds in a food processor.  Keep processing until the seeds are ground into a powder.

Then run one large carrot through a juice extractor and scoop out the pulp.  This is raw cake gold!  I always scoop out the pulp and run it through a second time.  It gets the maximum amount of juice out and also a drier pulp is good for making raw cakes (especially if you're dehydrator free like me).

But wait, before you run off to liquefy your carrots, there's one more thing - the super secret ingredient.  Are you ready?

Along with the carrot, juice one apple too.  Easy peasy, right?  It will give your cake an extra kick of sweetness and the apple compliments the carrot so well.

Mix the carrot-apple pulp with the ground sunflower seeds and 2-3 tablespoons of ground cinnamon.  With the processor running add some soaked raisins until the mixture begins to form balls in the food processor.

Spread the cake "batter" into a pan and place in the fridge to harden.  Really pack the batter in tightly to make a nice dense cake.  I hate when raw cakes don't cut well and then fall apart when you try to serve individual slices.  This cake is not like that at all.  It cuts beautifully.

For a super simple raw frosting I used coconut oil mixed with a touch of honey.  Spread on the cake and place in the fridge for a few hours to harden.

Beautiful isn't it?

Even my mom, who usually stays away from my raw dessert experiments, kept asking me if she could have a piece.  She liked this version infinitely more than my non-secret ingredient raw carrot cake.       

Now my mind is turning .... what else can I make with this secret ingredient?  To be continued ...

I Like Her Style: Lauren Bush

This girl's got style.  Fashion with a message is something I whole-heartily support.  Let's face it, all us girls need to carry a purse or bag of some sort.  Your bag can either be something mindlessly bought at the mall or you can express yourself with your fashion choices.  I choose the latter and I hope you will too.

What I admire about Lauren Bush (yes, that Bush family) is that whether she's causally shopping or hitting up a star studded Hollywood movie premiere, she's always sporting a Feed Bag.

Feed is a non-profit organization co-founded by Lauren to help address the world's growing problem of starvation and malnutrition.  Ingeniously using the concept of a burlap animal feed bag, in 2006 Lauren designed a tote bag that could be sold as a fundraiser for the United Nations world food program.  Originally bearing the logo "Feed 1" the profits from each bag was said to feed one child in school for one year. 

Feed now offers several different bags, t-shirts, scarfs and many other accessories, each bearing the number of people that will be fed with the purchase of the product. 

Of course all the bags are also made from environmentally friendly materials using fair and ethical labour practices.  What's the use of feeding starving children if the bag's production exploits people and the environment, right?

I adore this clutch Lauren carried to a Unicef event:

She's even convinced her Ralph Lauren heir boyfriend, David Lauren to wear one - a man feed bag!

I can't wait to see what this humanitarian will do next ...